In many cases, the end of the year gives you time to step back and take stock of the last 12 months. This is when many of us take a hard look at what worked and what did not, complete performance reviews, and formulate plans for the coming year. For me, it is all of those things plus a time when I u...

KENTFIELD, Calif., Dec. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- College of Marin recently took advantage of rock-bottom interest rates to refinance previously issued general obligation bonds. In total, the bond refinancing represents a net present value savings to taxpayers of $6.36 million over the life of the bonds.

"As responsible stewards of the community's investment in the College, we recognized that refinancing of the bonds was the right thing to do at this time," said Dr. David Wain Coon, College of Marin Superintendent/President.

The College of Marin Board of Trustees approved the refinancing of previously issued bonds and sale of new bonds at its July 17, 2012, monthly meeting. The results of the refinancing are better than expected due to a drop in interest rates.

"The district was able to take advantage of today's historically low interest rates and achieve an exceptional result for taxpayers," said Sarah Hollenbeck, Director, Public Financial Management, Inc.

The $43.38 million refunding bonds sale took place on November 15, 2012. Eleven bids were received and the winning bidder was Guggenheim Securities. The bonds were originally financed at 4.9 percent. The refinanced rate is 2.11 percent (16-year debt).

According to Hollenbeck, the College also retains its high credit rating. Standard & Poor's reaffirmed the College's AA credit rating and Moody's reaffirmed the College's Aa1 rating for the bond refinancing.

"This is an excellent rating for the college and demonstrates outstanding fiscal management," said Hollenbeck.

Refunding bonds are used to refinance bonds that have higher interest rates. The proceeds from the sale of the refunding bonds are kept in an interest-bearing escrow account until the prior bond's maturity or redemption date. The monies in the escrow account are used to pay off the prior bonds, along with related interest and redemption costs. The refunding bonds will be serviced using the same property tax payments initially used to pay the prior bonds, but at a reduced overall cost.

In addition to refinancing prior bonds, College of Marin also sold a new series of bonds to fund additional facilities modernization projects approved under Measure C. The issuance of the new bonds was approved by the Board of Trustees at its meeting on August 21, 2012. On November 15, 2012, the College sold $46.995 million in Series D Bonds (new money) at a 3.13 percent interest rate (24-year debt). Ten bids were received and the winning bidder was Citigroup. The bond sale at the lower rate will result in a debt service of $79.5 million (compared with an estimate of $90.2 million presented to the Board of Trustees in July). With these results, the maximum tax rate on all Election of 2004 Bonds is projected at $21.30.

The 20th International Cloud Expo has announced that its Call for Papers is open. Cloud Expo, to be held June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, brings together Cloud Computing, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps, Containers, Microservices and WebRTC to one location.
...

You have great SaaS business app ideas. You want to turn your idea quickly into a functional and engaging proof of concept. You need to be able to modify it to meet customers' needs, and you need to deliver a complete and secure SaaS application. How could you achieve all the above and...

In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Claude Remillard, Principal Program Manager in Developer Division at Microsoft, contrasted how his team used config as code and immutable patterns for continuous delivery of microservices and apps to the cloud. He showed how the immutable patterns hel...

"Dice has been around for the last 20 years. We have been helping tech professionals find new jobs and career opportunities," explained Manish Dixit, VP of Product and Engineering at Dice, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 19th Cloud Expo, held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Conv...

@DevOpsSummit taking place June 6-8, 2017 at Javits Center, New York City, is co-located with the 20th International Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. @DevOpsSummit at Cloud Expo New York Ca...

Rapid innovation, changing business landscapes, and new IT demands force businesses to make changes quickly. In the eyes of many, containers are at the brink of becoming a pervasive technology in enterprise IT to accelerate application delivery. In this presentation, attendees learned ...